Moving on with William
Here is William’s lion rampant gules (red), duly completed. As I’ve mentioned, technically the background should be gold and green (or and vert, in heraldic terminology), but I don’t want the gold on the shield to argue with the gold of the underside couching, so I’ve gone for a pale yellow instead. All things considered, I don’t think the lion is too bad, because he’s really rather small, so I didn’t have very much room for manoevre!
That said, I may choose to tweak him some more before the whole thing is finished..
Now then, I need to move on to the frame for this picture, which is going to be the backdrop for the twined roses and gorse. The main border will be blue, but as I was thinking about it, I felt that the junction between the picture and the border needed to be managed.
This is what I’ve come up with: single lines of William’s three heraldic colours framing the picture in laid and couched work. I’m intending to finish the other side of the blue border with the same, but with the colours in reverse order.
But before I get to that I have to do the blue border, and as I’m intending to use trellis couching, it will be a while yet – three layers of stitching, background, trellis and tie stitches all to do. I’m using thread from three reels of slightly different blues, so there will be some variation in the colour, although as I’m intending to use a single colour for the trellis, it should settle back into a subtle backdrop for the gorse and the roses.
The shield looks perfectly impressive without any gold or golden-yellow. I think that the inner border will give the picture a lot of visual clout, leaving the intricacies of the main border for a dessert course.
I have to admire your willingness to tackle trellis couching on such a large area. I think my only attempt was in crewel wool at school – on my first project in senior school. I managed it, but it was only three or four sections no bigger than a £2 coin (or a half crown, as we said in those days).
Your Lion rampant looks very splendid and the narrow border sets off the wider one beautifully. xx
I think you have done a fantastic job on the shield. In the last picture, it certainly looks like you have used pale gold, so it is a trick of the eye. The rampant Qlion would scare any enemy!
I think you have done an excellent job with the lion.
I like the work you have done on the shield, and the image, that takes in the whole scene, shows your choice of yellow was spot on.
I agree, you’ve done a grand job with the shield, and will look forward to seeing the borders.